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Author Topic: Another thread about keas  (Read 3240 times)

KocLobster

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Another thread about keas
« on: June 19, 2016, 11:24:07 pm »

I'm having a problem dealing with keas in my fortress. I put up a couple doors at my entrance, but I keep getting messages about keas stealing important stuff. I'll end up pausing as soon as I see the message so I can zoom to it's location, but it's always way high up in the sky or some weird spot where I can't find anything. These things seems both invisible and able to go through doors.

How am I supposed to defend against these things? I don't understand how they are flying through my front entrance right now. I can't even find one on the map, let alone attack it.
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YetAnotherLurker

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #1 on: June 19, 2016, 11:54:13 pm »

Note that the announcement about things being stolen occurs when a Kea leaves the map with something, not when it grabs something. All you're managing to zoom to is where the Kea escaped from.

Are your doors set to "Tightly Closed"? Also, have you checked for holes in your ceiling left by trees elven saboteurs?

Anyway, chain a couple of animals up near your entrance, if that's truly the only way in. War dogs should do nicely, they tend to scare off the Keas before they get close enough to grab anything. Pasturing doesn't work so well, as your guard animals will tend to either run away in terror, or chase the Keas into trees and get stuck.
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Geldrin

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2016, 02:21:16 am »

Your soultion is a bunch of newly drafted marksdwarves with cheap wooden crossbows, and a ton of also cheap wooden or bone bolts.

=> free target practice, free kea meat, excessive fun for your denizens.
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Daris

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2016, 04:50:51 am »

Keas usually end up entering through accidental holes created by incautious lumbering, at least in my fortresses.  Consider them your early warning system that your security is leaky.

If they are consistently stealing stuff, keep checking to see when they arrive and follow one to see where it is getting in.  In the interim, protect your fort with some cage traps in an area that is 1z high near the entrance but behind your trade depot.
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Killgoth

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2016, 09:33:44 am »

Your only real solution is paranoia.
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Derro

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2016, 10:26:10 am »

Your only real solution is paranoia.

This is pretty good advice for DF in general.
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KocLobster

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2016, 01:03:39 pm »

This is some really great advice, from all of you. It's very much appreciated. What puzzles me is that the keas suddenly stopped stealing my stuff right around the time I created this thread. I don't believe I had done anything differently yet by that time, so I don't know what could have changed for them to stop stealing my stuff.


Note that the announcement about things being stolen occurs when a Kea leaves the map with something, not when it grabs something. All you're managing to zoom to is where the Kea escaped from.

I did not realize this, and this explains so much. Thank you for pointing this out. :)

How exactly does one check for holes above where my fortress is? I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be any; there don't seem to be any trees above the area where I have mined out my fortress. At the very least, I know that I never chopped down any trees that were above my fortress, only out in front of it mostly.


Your soultion is a bunch of newly drafted marksdwarves with cheap wooden crossbows, and a ton of also cheap wooden or bone bolts.

I have definitely been meaning to do this. I've just barely started to learn about military related stuff.


Anyway, chain a couple of animals up near your entrance, if that's truly the only way in. War dogs should do nicely, they tend to scare off the Keas before they get close enough to grab anything. Pasturing doesn't work so well, as your guard animals will tend to either run away in terror, or chase the Keas into trees and get stuck.

I really like this idea, and I dislike how often my dogs end up straying from their designated pasture. Oddly enough, I haven't noticed any of my other animals exhibiting this kind of behavior, not to the same extent as dogs I believe. Maybe more experienced players will know why this is.

I will look up how someone goes about chaining up the dogs, this sounds like a good idea for more than just kea attacks.
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Prop42

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2016, 05:14:52 pm »

I had a similar issue with vultures interrupting underground jobs, despite being 50 z-levels in the air when the cancellation is announced. Waterfowl simply aren't constrained by our conventional understanding of physics, I suppose.

Anyhow, I've got no idea what the cause is. I assume it's some form of oversight or bug. Raised drawbridges serving as gates seem to contribute to it's occurrence for some reason as well.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2016, 05:17:50 pm by Prop42 »
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Dunamisdeos

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #8 on: June 20, 2016, 06:08:31 pm »

Your only real solution is paranoia.

This is pretty good advice for DF in general.

I recommend crossbow-checking your citizenry to see if any of them are keas. You will never be too sure.
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Fleeting Frames

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2016, 12:40:30 am »

Your soultion is a bunch of newly drafted marksdwarves with cheap wooden crossbows, and a ton of also cheap wooden or bone bolts.

=> free target practice, free kea meat, excessive fun for your denizens.
Keas only provide a skull when butchered, according to wiki *shrug*

In any case, they are lovely birds for giving a low-level multi-faceted challenge, and behave a lot like their larger cousins of giant keas, undead keas, giant undead keas, rocs and undead rocs.

Albeit their stealing can be highly annoying - especially if they steal your only anvil - and they can cause deaths when your fortress design gives them tactical advantage (trees, dodge-deaths) - or your chained up war dog has become depressed or sucks at war and fails to fight back - their main danger to fortresses is vengeful spirals, where every dwarf gets stress buildup from wanting revenge on them.

Overall, the simplest quick solution to keas involves 2 logs and 1 tanned hide done into wood bolts, wood crossbow and quiver:

0. See if you have any dwarf with "Hunt!" job or Hunter job title. There's your pre-trained marksdwarf (disable hunting labour first.) with crossbow, quiver and bolts already obtained.
1. Go to (m)ilitary menu and (c)reate squad (if you already have one, you need to appoint a new milita commander from (n)obles).
2. Pick "No uniform" and stick 1 dwarf you want to be alert for keas in it.
3. Go to equip screen and give them a crossbow from (W)eapons.
4. Go to (f)ammunition and allocate them 25 or 50 bolts. Note that if you have less bolts than is allocated for hunters(default 100, and pretty likely situation if you don't have any hunters), they will never pick up the bolts you currently have.*
5. Go to supplies menu and disable them from carrying food or drink so they will respond promptly.
6. Actual response, finally: escape all the way back to default screen, go into (s)quad menu and order your newly-created squad(press the letter before their name) to station at where keas approach your fortress.

*It can be better to hunt with with military on patrol rather than actual hunters on account of being able to give military armor, shields, specific patrol, not sleeping in dirt, not retreating for bolts, not ignoring every animal but the one they're hunting....In which case you want to disable hunting labor on anyone who you find hunting and set hunters ammunition to 0. Note that if you do this, dwarves need to have (o)rder to gather corpses from outside, or you'll not get the meat from this hunting (though hunters don't bring back more than 1 animal too, even if they kill several at once).

There are more complex⁑ solutions, of course.

If you have single entrance into a corridor, setting up a weapon trap into a diagonal spot (wooden trap components can work) with cage trap (perhaps few tiles) afterwards to capture any who were lucky or fast enough to fly over the trap can help you hunt keas to extinction (check with dfhack's region-pop list KEA).

Alternatively, building 20z+ tall tower of stairs and putting something worth stealing (masterwork bucket is fine) before such a trap on top might work (untested) to kill keas without dwarves ever seeing them.

On hostile tree attacks, using 10x10 farm plots/paved roads over your fort roof would give you nice quick checks with instant  highlighting of holes.

For some entrances, walling up your main entrance and then having item to be stockpiled outside can also let you check if there is alternate "normal path".

Finally, pay in mind that flyers can path diagonally up or down and between missing floors - what is watertight is not keatight.

⁑ For dwarves. A player would likely find making 2 mechanisms, 1 wooden cage and few wooden trap components, then ordering them to be built simpler.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 12:48:45 am by Fleeting Frames »
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Daris

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2016, 06:12:22 am »

Every once in a great while a kea will produce some small amount of meat (2 units).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Granted, I have slaughtered about 10 flocks of the things in this fort and only seen this one stack appear, so it seems to be a pretty rare occurrence.  It's possible it comes from killed wild keas that are butchered, as that has not been unusual in this fort's history, either.

The only solution to keas I have ever needed is a line of cage traps.  If you don't want your military or your main entryway getting involved, build a hut 1-z high, in a + shape, lined with cage traps with something shiny but cheap in the center, like a green glass block.  When you capture them, tame them, and then send them to the abattoir where they belong.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2016, 06:15:06 am by Daris »
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Sanctume

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Re: Another thread about keas
« Reply #11 on: June 21, 2016, 09:06:13 am »